Selecting a wine from a wine collection is a decision that may take into account many variables. For example, for a wine enthusiast, there is no more vexing a question than—what wine should I drink tonight? It is a question that is filled with the promise of opportunity. After all, a great bottle of wine paired with a great meal is one of the greatest pleasures in life. But whether you are having a simple weeknight dinner or a 6 course meal, the question is not a simple one. It may require aligning technical information about wines in a current wine collection (e.g., varietal, vintage, drinkability, or cost), with emotional knowledge about the wines in the current wine collection (e.g., a special significance of the wine), and matching those insights to the meal or event for which the wine is being selected. Further, one needs to be able to find the selected wine quickly and efficiently.
Traditional inventory systems for tracking information and the locations of the wines in a wine collection often utilize spreadsheets, sticky notes, or tags that hang around the neck of each wine bottle to track information about the wines in a collection. However, these inventory systems have several drawbacks. For example, traditional inventory systems require a lot of individual attention, as the information for the wines in the wine collection is manually entered and removed. The requirement of manual entry in traditional inventory systems may result in less information about the wines being tracked due to extra effort on the part of the wine collection manager to locate, enter, and organize information about the wines in the wine collection. Further, because traditional inventory systems do not automatically update, the inventory of bottles available in a collection easily becomes inaccurate if, for example, a wine bottle is opened without it being recorded or if a wine bottle is added to the collection without it being recorded. Additionally, locating a wine in a wine collection may be inefficient using traditional inventory systems, as locating the desired wine may require reading wine bottle labels, tags, or notes.
To at least partially address these issues, a wine inventory management system and methods are provided. An example wine inventory management system may comprise hosted services communicatively coupled to an application and smart caps.
An example method for wine inventory management may comprise, responsive to a user input, comparing information about one or more wines in a wine collection to a set of criteria, determining that at least one of the of wines satisfies the set of criteria, and illuminating indicator lights of smart caps (also referred to as caps herein) that correspond with the at least one wine satisfying the set of criteria. The smart caps may be mounted on wine bottles in the wine collection. In some examples, the smart caps may be mounted over a cork or cap of a wine bottle. In other examples, the smart caps may be mounted to a neck of a wine bottle. Multiple smart caps may form a cap display. However, in some examples, a cap display may only comprise one smart cap. By illuminating indicator lights of the smart caps in a cap display that corresponds with the set of criteria, wines that meet the set of criteria may be quickly and efficiently located from a wine collection.
Further, a color of the indicator lights or other light animation, such as a light image or pulsing, that may illuminate the smart caps may correspond with a specific meaning. For example, if a wine is recommended to drink, the indicator light of the smart cap associated with the recommended wine may be illuminated in a particular color to indicate that the wine is recommended to drink. On the other hand, in an example where a wine is not recommended to drink, such as a wine that is too young, the indicator light of a smart cap may be illuminated with a different color indicating that the wine is not recommended to drink.
An example wine inventory management system comprises at least one smart cap, where each of the at least one smart cap includes one or more indicator lights, a wireless subsystem, and a microcontroller with instructions stored in non-transitory memory for illuminating the indicator lights. Each of the at least one smart cap may be mounted to a wine bottle. In some examples, the at least one smart cap may be mounted over a cork of a wine bottle. In other examples, the at least one smart cap may be mounted to a neck of the wine bottle. Each of the at least one caps may also include a plurality of sensors.
The smart caps may be illuminated in response to the smart caps receiving a request via the wireless subsystem. The smart caps may be illuminated by illuminating indicator lights of the smart caps. A smart cap may receive a request to illuminate the indicator lights responsive to a wine with which a smart cap is associated satisfying a set of criteria. In other examples, a smart cap may receive a request to illuminate its indicator lights responsive to a button of the smart cap receiving a user input. In some examples, the user input may be pressing the button of the smart cap.
The wireless subsystem of each of the smart caps may enable the formation of wireless communication links. The wireless subsystems of the smart caps may form wireless communication links with a hub system, for example. In some embodiments, the wireless subsystem may form a wireless communication link with one or more of a server (e.g., a cloud-based server) and a wine inventory device operating a wine inventory application of the wine inventory management system via the hub system. The server may support hosted services of the wine inventory management system, in some examples. In this way, the smart caps may provide an Internet of Things (IoT) based approach to at least partly address issues with traditional wine inventory systems.